


if I can't have you I'll walk this life alone

by ShyAudacity



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Bisexual Evan "Buck" Buckley, Christmas, Christopher Diaz is a National Treasure, Crying, Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mentioned Shannon Diaz, Misunderstandings, just by a year or two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:08:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27785011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShyAudacity/pseuds/ShyAudacity
Summary: Buck must be cheating on him. That’s the only explanation Eddie can come up with as to why Buck’s been so secretive lately.Eddie would bring it up- ask Buck if something’s going on that he doesn’t know about- but a part of him doesn’t want to know the answer. For now, Eddie would rather just pretend that things are fine. The potential destruction of his relationship can wait until after the new year.He wants to hold onto this for as long as he can. Whatever is left of it, anyway.ORBuck is hiding something from Eddie (but it's not as bad as he thinks).
Relationships: Christopher Diaz & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Eddie Diaz & Firehouse 118 Crew (9-1-1 TV), Eddie Diaz & Sophia Diaz, Eddie Diaz/Shannon Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 358





	if I can't have you I'll walk this life alone

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to Haley for putting this event on! I don't write fluff very often so it was super fun to get to venture out of my comfort zone a bit. And thank you to Becky for being my beta (ily)! Enjoy!
> 
> Title from Leave Your Lover by Sam Smith.

Buck must be cheating on him. That’s the only explanation Eddie can come up with as to why Buck’s been so secretive lately.

It started a month ago or so, right after their two-year anniversary. It was just little things at first, like Buck putting his phone away as soon as Eddie came near him or not letting Christopher play games on it like he usually would. Then, Buck started going to the gym by himself and picking shifts without telling Eddie about it first. Even Christopher is acting a little weird, but he attributes that more to still adjusting to middle school. 

On top of it all, things just feel… different between them. Eddie can’t put his finger on what it is. He doesn’t want to be that guy that gets all jealous over what could be nothing, but Buck’s never been like this around him before. He doesn’t want to bring it up with Hen or any of the guys at work cause it’ll just turn into gossip. He doesn’t need to put his romantic life on blast like that.

Eddie would bring it up- ask Buck if something’s going on that he doesn’t know about- but a part of him doesn’t want to know the answer. Not right now anyway. It’s the holiday season; Christmas is in a couple of weeks. For now, Eddie would rather just pretend that things are fine. The potential destruction of his relationship can wait until after the new year. 

He wants to hold onto this for as long as he can. Whatever is left of it, anyway.

Somehow, airports around the holidays are always worse than Eddie remembers. But he loves his sister, so he offered to pick her up instead of making her take an uber to the house. He wishes that Adrianna could’ve come, too, but flying her whole family out just wasn’t in the cards for this year. Maybe they can take a trip down to El Paso over Spring Break.

“Dad, how much longer?” Christopher asks from in front of him.

He looks down at his watch. “Just a few more minutes, bud. Tia Sophia’s plane just landed; it’ll take a few minutes to get out of the gate.”

“Can we go to McDonald's after?”

“We had lunch before we came here. Why would we go to McDonald's?”

“Cause what if Tia wants fries. She’s our guest, we can’t tell her no!”

Eddie laughs and shakes his head. When Buck doesn’t laugh along with him, he looks over his shoulder to find him looking at his phone with a furrowed brow. “Everything good?”

Buck flattens his phone against his chest, looking a little startled. “Yeah. Yeah, everything’s great. How much longer?”

He ignores the sour feeling in his chest and shakes his head. “I swear, you’re worse than-.”

“Tia!” 

Eddie looks over and sure enough, Sophia is walking out of the gate with a duffle bag slung over her shoulder and pulling a suitcase behind her. Her smile is wide and she picks up her pace as she spots the three of them waiting for her. Christopher claps the closer that she gets until she’s close enough to touch.

Sophia goes to Eddie first, throwing her arms around his shoulders and hugging him tightly. “It’s been too long!”

“We just saw you for your birthday in September,” Eddie reminds her.

“So?” She asks sarcastically. Christopher giggles while Eddie shakes his head. Sophia hugs Christopher next before doing their intricate handshake; as many times as he’s tried to do the handshake with Christopher, Eddie can’t ever seem to get it right.

Maybe it’s just him, but Eddie swears something about Sophia’s demeanor changes when she looks at Buck. There’s an almost mischievous look in her eye when she stretches her arms out and says, “Hi, Buck!” Buck grins at her right back as he steps forward, his greeting muffled by her hair.

If he didn’t know any better, Eddie would think that Sophia is more excited to see Buck than she is to see him. The two of them have always gotten along since they were first introduced, but he didn’t think that they were close by any means. Eddie pushes the odd feeling aside, telling himself it’s nothing- he’s just reading into it too much because of how Buck is acting. Hell, the two things probably aren’t even related.

By the time Eddie’s kicked the idea out of his head, Sophia is stretching her arms over her head, looking around at the various shops and fast food places that are surrounding them. “Alright. I’m starving; is there a Mcdonald's around here?” 

Before he can even say anything, Christopher is looking up at Eddie with wide eyes, proudly proclaiming, “I told you so!”

The next day, the four of them are at Target for some last-minute Christmas shopping. Almost as soon as they walk-in, Sophia pulls Buck in the opposite direction of Christopher and Eddie, yelling, “There’s a gift that you can’t see! Don’t be nosy!”

Eddie thinks it’s a little odd, but doesn’t push it. Christmas is only a few days away; he can wait a little longer to find out what his gift is. He and Christopher browse the aisles, looking around for something else for Abuela. Christopher points out a few things and holds them in his lap as Eddie pushes his wheelchair along. The wheelchair is relatively new; Christopher wasn’t feeling up for walking with his crutches today so Eddie figured they might as well try it out.

They’re walking through the home décor section when out of nowhere Christopher asks. “What was it like when you married Mom?”

Eddie is so caught off guard by the question that he almost trips over his own feet as he comes to a halt. The back right wheel leaves a small mark on the linoleum. He tries scuffing it out with his shoe as he says, “We had a really small wedding. Mom and I went down to the courthouse and then had some friends over later for dinner.”

“You didn’t have a big party?”

“Your mom wanted to, but being in the army made planning tricky. We talked about having a ceremony later, but we never got around to it. Besides, we were just happy to have you finally.” Eddie stops walking, coming in front of Christopher to look him in the eye. “Why do you ask?”

Christopher shrugs, not meeting his eye. “Was just wondering.”

The familiar ache of missing Shannon starts to grow in his chest. “…Chris, you know it’s okay to miss Mom-.”

“I _know_.”

Eddie gets the odd feeling that all of this is about something else, but he can’t imagine what. He decides to let it go, unsure if he really wants to know where all of this is coming from. They continue onto another aisle, letting Christopher smell all the candles that he can reach until he finds one that he thinks Abuela would like.

When they finally meet back up with Buck and Sophia, he doesn’t say anything about what Christopher asked him. He and Buck have talked about getting married a few times, but Eddie thinks it might freak him out if he tells him about Christopher’s questions. Things are already weird enough right now; he doesn’t want to add to all of that.

He stays quiet on the drive home, listening to Sophia and Christopher’s conversation about a science project. Halfway home, Buck nudges Eddie’s arm from the passenger seat. When he looks over at him, Buck raises his eyebrows. His silent way of asking, _you good?_

Eddie just nods, squeezing Buck’s knee before looking back at the road. He keeps his hand on Buck’s thigh as he drives, hoping to god that’s he’s wrong about all of this somehow. 

As much as he’s grateful to not be working Christmas Day this year, working Christmas Eve isn’t exactly fun for Eddie either.

They sit down to eat early in the afternoon, knowing how unpredictable the timing of emergencies can be. If nothing else, Eddie is grateful that Bobby made dinner today. His cooking could make just about any day better and he definitely needs it right now.

They’ve only had a couple of calls so far, but Eddie can’t help but feel like Buck is ignoring him. This morning when Bobby teamed Buck with Ramirez for clean up at the end of a five-car pile-up call, he didn’t even put up a fight. Any other time he would’ve looked over at Eddie with big eyes to pout about not getting to stick with each other.

Even after that when they were given chores back at the firehouse, Buck opted to help Hen clean the truck instead of doing a tool check with Eddie. Buck _hates_ cleaning the truck. It’s like he’s an entirely different person these days and Eddie can’t figure him out.

Still, when they’re all seated around the table, Eddie doesn’t miss Chimney failing to be quiet as he asks Buck, “Did you ever get the ring size figured out?”

Eddie furrows his brow. He looks up at Chimney before looking over to Buck. “Ring size? What would you need a ring size for?”

Both of them blanch, going pale in the face. Before either of them can come up with an answer a light bulb goes off in Eddie’s head. He looks back to Chimney. “Wait, are you proposing to Maddie?”

Chimney stammers lamely, “Y-yes, yes I am. I’m proposing to Maddie and that’s why I asked Buck to get her ring size. Yeah. That’s it.”

“Dude, that’s great!” Eddie looks over at Buck who still hasn’t lost the deer in headlights look on his face. “Why didn’t you tell me about that?”

Buck looks like he’s forgotten how to speak. “Well it was supposed to be a secret, but apparently Chimney can’t keep _his own mouth shut._ ”

The last few words come out through gritted teeth and Chimney makes an apologetic face. Everyone around him looks a little too wide-eyed for his liking but he goes with it anyway. Maybe that’s why Buck has been acting so strange; if he’s been helping Chimney pick out a ring, that could explain why he keeps disappearing all the time… but that doesn’t make all of the other stuff add up. Eddie’s tired of letting all of this consume his thoughts so much of the time. 

There’s a house fire that takes up the next three hours of their shift before he can read into it too much and in an odd way, Eddie is grateful for the distraction.

Despite their shift not ending until almost midnight, Christopher still wakes him up early on Christmas morning. Even with being tired, there’s no way that he’s missing out on the smile on Christopher’s face.

Sophia and Buck are already in the living room when he gets up and Buck looks… freaked out, almost. He was tossing and turning most of the night- did he have a nightmare and not say anything to Eddie about it? That’s weird. Usually, he can’t get back to sleep without talking about it or doing a few laps around the house to wear himself out, at least. Eddie decides to let it go for now; if Buck is still acting off later, he can ask him about it.

Everything else goes well. Christopher likes his new lights for the spokes of his wheelchair and the Lego sets that Adrianna sent him. Eddie gets a new watch from his parents- it’s a good thing, too. His other one kept stalling and stopping no matter how many times he tried to fix it.

As the morning goes on, Eddie can’t help but notice the sideways glances that Buck and Sophia keep sharing with each other. Eddie doesn’t understand it. Why are they being so weird? Do they know something he doesn’t?

After an hour, there’s only one present left under the tree. A small, gift-wrapped box, addressed to both Eddie and Buck. He doesn’t recognize the gift; he’s pretty sure it wasn’t there when he set out presents last night- where could it have come from? Eddie lets Buck take him by the hand, pulling him over to the tree.

Just as he’s getting up, his phone chimes with a text notification. Eddie pulls it from the pocket of his dark grey sweatpants, squinting down at the screen trying to read the text 

**Hen:** _Did you get it yet?_

What the hell is that supposed to mean? 

In the midst of all of this, he’s oblivious to Buck digging around in his own pocket. “Wait, before we open that,” Buck says, “Will you do something for me?” 

Eddie looks away from his phone finally, saying, “Sure, what-,” then promptly forgets what he was saying at the sight of Buck down on one knee.

“Marry me,” Buck says, his eyes glistening.

All at once, Eddie loses the ability to breathe. His sister is filming in the corner and Buck is _on one knee_ with a ring box in his hand. His phone falls out of his hand and clatters to the floor as he looks between the box and Buck. Inside, there’s a gold band with two stones connected in the middle- both of their birthstones.

From behind him, Christopher sort of whispers, “Say yes, Dad!”

Eddie nods numbly, still too stunned to actually speak. His hands shake as Buck slides the ring on his finger and holy shit he’s getting _married_ . To _Buck_.

Christopher cheers loudly behind him and Sophia says something about “That’s going on Facebook for sure.” For once, Eddie doesn’t mind that all of the attention is on him. Hell, he’s too overwhelmed to even notice.

Eddie pulls Buck up, wrapping his arms around Buck’s shoulders and burrowing into his warm neck. Both of them are crying. He’s getting married. Buck is going to be his husband. He gets to share all of his good moments with him _forever_.

Eddie pulls back just enough to kiss him, not caring that they’re both a mess. Then, it dawns on him as he looks down at the ring. All of the sneaking around, hiding his phone- Buck wasn’t helping Chimney get a ring, he was getting one for _himself_.

“Wait- is this why you kept picking up shifts without me?”

Buck throws his head back and laughs, “Yes! I had to make a down payment somehow. What did you think I was doing?”

Eddie shakes his head, forgetting all of his worries at once, “Doesn’t matter.” He leans in to kiss him again and good god he’s never been more relieved to be wrong about something.

He’s so caught up in the moment that he almost forgets about the small box that’s at his feet. What else could there possibly be? Eddie unwraps it gently, not sure what else to expect. Pulling back the lid, he finds a folded piece of paper that says _My Blessing._ It’s in Christopher’s handwriting.

Eddie looks to his son with a confused face. “Blessing? For what?”

Christopher looks at him like the answer is obvious. “To get married!”

He can’t even try to stop the sob that comes out of his mouth and next to him, Buck does the same thing. Eddie drops to his knees in front of the couch, pulling Christopher to his chest and holding him tightly; it’s only a moment later that he feels Buck’s arms come around both of them. After all of them have wiped their eyes, Eddie looks down at the ring on his finger, realizing something else.

“Hold on,” he says, looking at Christopher again, “You were in on this the whole time?”

Christopher’s mischievous laugh answers his question. He can’t even be mad. He hasn’t felt this happy in _years_. 

They don’t do much as far as celebrating that day, they’re all content to lounge around the house and just be close with each other. Eddie takes his time calling his parents and the rest of the one-eighteen. Most of them were already in on it, as it turns out, but they’re excited for Eddie and Buck all the same.

But the next day, when they’re all over at Tia Pepa’s and Christopher & Sophia are spending the night with some other cousins, Eddie and Buck go back to the house to have some of their own alone time.

They fall into bed almost as soon as they get home. It’s soft and sweet and warm- but there’s an extra feeling in the air, too- something more joyful than what they’re used to. Later, when they’re sated and spent, still lying next to each other, Eddie looks down at where Buck’s head is pillowed against his shoulder, sleeping peacefully. Eddie can’t resist but to lean down and kiss him, grateful that he gets to have this life with him.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays!
> 
> Thanks for reading my fic! Comments/Kudos are appreciated and encouraged. Have a great day!


End file.
